University of St.

Thomas of Mozambique
Business School
Semester I Exam
Course: Business Management Academic Year: 2023
Class: 1P1BBM Time: 18h00 – 1930hrs
Discipline: Introduction to Management Date: 04/ 05/ 2023.

Section I: Read each question below and provide a clear straight forward answer

1. In short, define organizational culture and discuss its three primary implications. Give an example
of organizational culture.
Answer:
What is organizational culture? It's the shared values, principles, traditions, and ways of doing
things that influence the way organizational members act. In most organizations, these important
shared values and practices have evolved over time and determine, in large degree, what
employees perceive about their organizational experiences and how they behave in the
organization. When doing their work, the organizational culture, the "way we do things around
here", influences what employees can do and how they view, define, analyze, and resolve problems
and issues.
This definition of culture implies three things. First, culture is a perception. Individuals perceive
the organizational culture on the basis of what they see, hear, or experience within the
organization. Second, even though individuals may have different backgrounds or work at different
organizational levels, they tend to describe the organization's culture in similar terms. That's the
shared aspect of culture. Finally, organizational culture is descriptive. It's concerned with how
members perceive the organization, not with whether they like it. It describes rather than
evaluates.

2. In a short essay, discuss how culture constrains managers. Include specific examples to support
your answer.

Answer:
Because an organization's culture constrains what they can and cannot do, it is particularly
relevant to managers. These constraints are rarely explicit. They're not written down. It's unlikely
that they'll even be spoken. But they're there, and all managers quickly learn what to do and not to
do in their organization. For instance, you won't find the following values written down anywhere,
but each comes from a real organization.

• Look busy even if you're not.

• If you take risks and fail around here, you'll pay dearly for it.
• Before you make a decision, run it by your boss so that he or she is never surprised.
• We make our product only as good as the competition forces us to.
• What made us successful in the past will make us successful in the future.
 • If you want to get to the top here, you have to be a team player.

The link between values such as these and managerial behavior is fairly straightforward. Take, for
example, a so-called "ready-aim-fire" culture. In such an organization, managers will study
proposed projects first and analyze them endlessly before committing to them. However, in a
"ready-fire-aim" culture, managers take action and then analyze what has been done. Or, say an
organization's culture supports the belief that profits can be increased by cost cutting and that the
company's best interests are served by achieving slow but steady increases in quarterly earnings.
Managers are unlikely to pursue programs that are innovative, risky, long term, or expansionary.
For organizations that value and encourage workforce diversity, the organizational culture and
thus managers' decisions and actions, will be supportive of diversity efforts.

In an organization whose culture conveys a basic distrust of employees, managers are more likely
to use an authoritarian leadership style than a democratic one. Why? The culture establishes for
managers what is appropriate and expected behavior. At St. Luke's advertising agency in London,
for example, a culture shaped by the value placed on freedom of expression, a lack of coercion and
fear, and a determination to make work fun influences the way employees work and the way that
managers plan, organize, lead, and control. The organization's culture is reinforced even by the
office environment which is open, versatile, and creative.

3. List and briefly discuss the 4 first steps in decision making process, give a clear example for each
of the steps

Answer:
Step 1: Identifying a problemthe decision-making process begins with the existence of a problem
or a discrepancy between an existing and a desired state of affairs. However, a discrepancy
without pressure to take action becomes a problem that can be postponed.

Step 2: Identify decision criteriaonce the manager has identified a problem that needs attention,
the decision criteria important to resolving the problem must be identified. That is, managers must
determine what's relevant in making a decision.

Step 3: Allocating weights to the criteriaat this step, the decision maker must weigh the items in
order to give them the correct priority in the decision. A simple approach is to give the most
important criterion a weight of 10 and then assign weights to the rest against that standard.

Step 4: Developing alternativesthe fourth step requires the decision maker to list the viable
alternatives that could resolve the problem. No attempt is made in this step to evaluate the
alternative, only to list them.
4. Shortly, explain how strategic plans and operational plans differ in terms of time frame and scope?
Are there any similarities between them? which? If no, what makes you think so?

Answer:

Strategic plans are usually long-term and often focus beyond three years in the future; operational plans are
short-term, focusing on twelve months or less. The scope of strategic plans is normally applied to an entire
organization and establish the organization's overall goals; the scope of operational plans is usually centered
on departments or a particular operational area of the organization.

A strategic plan outlines an organisation mission, vision, and high-level goals for the next three to five years. It
also takes into account how you’ll measure those goals, and the major projects you’ll take on to meet them. An
operational plan is a highly detailed outline of what your department will focus on for the near future—usually
the upcoming year. The plan will answer questions - who, what, when, and how much - regarding daily or
weekly tasks.

5. Classrooms have cultures. Describe your classroom culture using the seven dimensions of
organizational culture. Does the culture constrain your instructor? How? Does it constrain you as a
student? How? Give examples whenever necessary.

Answer:

In a classroom culture the course instructor is the manager and the rest of students can be considered
as sub-ordinates. As the course instructor allots tasks in the form of assignments and provide grades
based on those, which can be considered as rewards. The following are the seven dimensions of
organizational culture which can also be applied in a classroom:

 Stability: Course instructor consistently tries to increase the knowledge of students by teaching
and conducting tests. Thus the culture of the class where the learning is promoted and
pedagogy is genuine and creative should be dynamic.
 Aggressiveness: He encourages students to be competitive with one another to perform well in
exams.
 Innovation and Risk Taking: There is no serious risk taking in classroom but course instructor
encourages students to be innovative.
 Attention to detail: A good analysis and attention to the subject is always encouraged by the
course instructor.
 Outcome orientation: A course instructor focuses on the way he teaches so that students could
learn as much as possible from a classroom experience.
 People orientation: All the decisions made by course instructor in the classroom are for the
well-being of students. A class that is led by a good teacher would be highly people-oriented.
 Team orientation: Course instructor divides students into groups of teams and assigns work, so
that they will know how to help each other. By doing this students will have a first-hand
experience of how teams in an organization.

Section 2: For each question below, choose the correct answer and write it on your answer sheet.
Additional explanation to the selected assertion voids the answer. Choose only one answer.
Choosing more than one assertion invalidates them all. (A, B, C or D)

1) When developing alternatives in the decision-making process, what must a manager do?
A) List alternatives. B) Weight alternatives.
C) Implement alternatives. D) Evaluate alternatives.

2) Selecting an alternative in the decision-making process is accomplished by ________.

A) choosing the one you like best
B) selecting the alternative that has the lowest price
C) selecting the alternative that is the most reliable
D) choosing the alternative with the highest score
3) Bawito asked employees in his company if they knew what constituted “good employee behavior.”
He found that very few understood, and most had a variety of ideas. This is one indication that her
company ________.
A) has a strong culture B) must have high turnover
C) has a weak culture D) has no culture

4) Which of the following is important in effectively implementing the chosen alternative in the
decision-making process?
A) Allowing those impacted by the outcome to participate in the process.
B) Getting upper-management support.
C) Ignoring criticism concerning your chosen alternative.
D) Double-checking your analysis for potential errors.

5) Intuitive decision making is ________.

A) important in supporting escalation of commitment
B) not utilized in organizations
C) making decisions based on experience, feelings, and accumulated judgment
D) a conscious process based on accumulated judgment

6) In studying intuitive decision making, researchers have found that ________.

A) rational thinking always works better than intuitive
B) managers do not make decisions based on feelings or emotions
C) managers use data from their subconscious mind to help make their decisions
D) accumulated experience does not support intuitive decisions

7) The main forces that make up an organization's specific environment are ________.
A) customers, suppliers, competitors, and pressure groups
B) employees, competitors, pressure groups, and regulators
C) suppliers, legislators, customers, and employees
D) suppliers, employees, competitors, and legislators

8) In reality, managers are most accurately viewed as ________.

A) ultimately responsible for organizational outcomes
B) neither helpless nor all powerful
C) powerless to influence an organization's performance
D) dominant over an organization's environment
9) Which of the following is most likely to have a highly ethical organizational culture?
A) a highly aggressive, competitive business
B) a business with outgoing and friendly employees
C) a company with high risk tolerance
D) a business that focuses strictly on outcomes

10) Employees in organizations with strong cultures ________.

A) are more likely to follow directives from peers
B) are more likely to leave their organizations
C) are more willing to perform illegal activities
D) are more committed to their organizations

Good work - David Lugundu - Lecturer